Oh yea . . . . check the plug on your hot water heater. Replace it if it looks corroded. I don't know why, but they put these cheap plastic plugs in the hot water heater and they fail after 2 or 3 years.

Mine was so bad I had to take it out in pieces. Then I screwed up the tank's pipe threads and had to use a tap. This would be a good time to flush out the hot water tank.

What a wealth of helpful information. I copied and pasted fireguy's Maintenance Reminder and added in many of the other contributions. We now have some great guidelines thanks to you all. We are newbie full timers and need all the help we can get.

On the subject of water heater wear and tear: does anyone turn the water heater off when not in use? Ours seems to heat very quickly. Corrosion is a chemical reaction, which goes faster at a higher temperature. I don't have a textbook to look up the q10 of rusting, but if it were 2: 140 F - 70 f= 70 degree hotter. 70 / 1.8 = 40 C.So 2 to the fourth power is 16. corrosion goes 16 times faster if heater on. If water heater on 4 hours/day, it would corrode about 5/24 as fast as 24h/d. plus less heat to fight w ac if used.

Thanks for the to do list. We're still newbies at full timing in our 5er. We will be leaving Yuma in a couple of weeks for the coast. I'll be sure to go over the points mentioned before we head out. Thanks for taking the time to post. Cheers

My wife and I are making our first trip to Alaska this summer. In preparation for the trip I wanted to make sure the coach was ready for the road. Unable to do the work myself, I took our 43' Toyhauler into a local tire shop to have the wheel bearings inspected and repacked. During the process, the technician discovered one of the brake auto-adjusters had broken and was in need of replacement. Also, while the tires were off, I had them inspect the shackles and spring mounts. After only 5 years, they were shot. The dry-bolt system installed at the factory had failed. I had them install a wet-bolt system from Dexter Axel. Although it was a very expensive day, the frustration of having a catastrophic failure in the middle of Canada or the out-back of Alaska hopefully has been avoided. Long way around to add Spring Shackles to the list.